Man Utd 3 - 0 Copenhagen

Scholes 39, O'Shea 46, Richardson 83

Mike Adamson

Tuesday October 17, 2006

Can someone buy this man a razor please?

Preamble
Good evening everyone. Now then, Copenhagen are exactly the sort of team Uefa and G14 hope to exclude from the Champions League, in that they dont play in one of the fashionable leagues and they are, after all, only 14 years old (the club, not the players). For defying the powers-that-be and overcoming Ajax to reach the group stages we should commend them (thats not meant to be quite as patronising as it sounds).

But lets be honest here: their star player is former Villa nobody Marcus Allback, whose greatest achievement of 2006 is scoring in the World Cup against England, ie not much of an achievement. The last time United played a Danish team was in their Treble-winning season when they scored 11 goals in two games against Brondby. Therefore, if United dont pick up three points and at least that number of goals this evening, the Old Trafford faithful will go home disappointed.

Sir Alex has finally come to his senses and abandoned 4-3-3, 4-5-1, 4-2-3-1, 4-1-4-1, 4-3-2-1 and every other combination of 1s, 2s, 3s, 4s and 5s to go back to his not-very-tried-nor-trusted-recently 4-4-2. For this United fans should be thankful  the front six are the ones the supporters would choose, so they cant have too many complaints should all not go to plan.

Allback isnt the only failed former Premiership player in the Copenhagen ranks. Jesper Gronkjaer misses out through injury, but Tobias Linderoth was able to put his hand up when the manager took the register, as hes decided hed rather skip the birth of his child than the trip to Old Trafford.

First email of the night
Comes from my Danish Man United-supporting colleague Lars Eriksen, who clearly has split loyalties: "Easy now Mike. Don't underestimate the lions of Copenhaggg....bah! Who am I kidding. It will be worse than Man U v Brondby during the 98/99 campaign. Watching this Big Cup exhibition fixture back in the motherland where Peter Schmeichel is doing his best Des Lynam impression on Danish TV - there is lots of talk about bacon and live reporting from a bar called the The Happy Pig. The horror..." Darn you, Eriksen - that bacon reference was going to be my top pun. In fact, it probably still will be.

7.42pm
"An early plea," from Dennis Patrickson. "Please can you restrict Gary Naylor to a limit of three mentions?" he asks, unwittingly giving Gary Naylor his first mention. "Oh, and in a previous MBM, I suggested that there were cracks to be manipulated in the Bears' Super Bowl challenge. I watched them last night on Monday Night Football. It was insane. 3-20 down deep into the third quarter. Three non-offensive scores later, culminating in a late, late 83-yard punt return gave them the game - 24-23. It was insane.Destiny is with them. I'm a believer now." Yes, Dennis, but they still had to rely on that late field-goal miss, didn't they. Carolina's where it's at.

7.44pm
"I was having an argument with some of my friends over this, so, do you know if any professional footballers wear contact lenses?" asks Alastair Slaven. Not much time to think, but I'm pretty sure Kasey Keller wore glasses away from the pitch, so presumably he wore contact lenses. Others please?

7.45pm
Something strange has happened here. Rooney is the captain. Let me see - ah, Giggs injured himself in the warm-up. Fletcher is playing on the right, with Ronaldo on the left.

1 min
Twenty seconds in and Rooney flicks a beautiful ball through for Saha, who's one-on-one with the keeper ... but Christiansen saves. What a chance!

2 mins
It's now become apparent that Rio Ferdinand is also injured!!! Brown is playing in his place.

5 mins
After that early scare, Copenhagen - decked out in bright blue tops - have settled with some pretty passing moves. My informers tell me Giggs was feeling under the weather in the warm-up while Ferdinand's knock isn't serious - a mere precaution for the game against Liverpool on Sunday.

7 mins
Shortly after my colleague David Pleat was praising the defensive abilities of right-back Jacobsen, he was nutmegged by, and then tripped, Evra. If Evra can do that to him, what success might Ronaldo have against him. Talk of the devil (not literally), here he is with the free-kick...

8 mins
Ronaldo thumps it towards goal from an impossible angle (at least for those of us who only got a B in maths) and Christiansen punches clear.

9 mins
Stat unscrupulously stolen from ITV: it's 12 hours since Rooney last scored for either club or country. I presume they mean 12 hours playing time, rather than that he stuck one away at shortly before 8am this morning. Either way, he almost ends that stretch here with a shot from distance, but it flies wide.

11 mins
"Alan Stubbs uses contacts," chips in Gary Naylor, using up one of his allotted three contributions. "And Mike Reilly needs to." With that spelling of the ref's name, Gary, you've probably riled him yourself.

12 mins
Saha and Rooney are linking up nicely, which isn't something they can achieve when Rooney's playing at left wing-back, like he was against Benfica. However, this time Gravgaard shows impressive acceleration and reaches Rooney's throughball before Saha can.

13 mins
"In response to your earlier correspondent, plenty of footballers wore lenses," says Neil Baxter. "I can think of two examples right now - the famously ugly Scottish keeper Jim Leighton used to wear them. He used to coat his eyebrows in vaseline because he thought it kept the sweat out his eyes, and therefore wouldn't affect his vision - affected everyone else's vision though, it made him look even more hideous! The god awful Harald Brattback, who played briefly for Celtic, lost one of his mid-game once - he played better when he couldn't see, etc and so on."

14 mins
United win the first corner of the match in unusual style, Gravgaard wellying the ball straight at Jacobsen only for it to ricocheet behind the goal. However, Ronaldo's delivery is too close to the keeper, and Christiansen shows that world supermiddleweight champion Mikkel Kessler isn't the only top Danish puncher again.

16 mins
WHAT A MISS! A brilliant flowing move saw Ronaldo play a one-two with Saha, sprint behind the defence and play a cross-cum-shot towards Rooney and the far post. Sadly it bisected the two, leaving both players with their heads firmly planted in their hands.

19 mins
Silberbauer is lively. Picking the ball up on the United half of the centre circle, he sprinted forward unchallenged and let fly from 25 yards. Unfortunately he himself travelled quicker than his scuffed shot. Fergie won't be pleased with Scholes and Carrick allowing him that much room.

21 mins
A poor attempted clearance of Fletcher's even poorer cross lands at Saha, but he drags his shot wide of the far post. Football was certainly not the winner there. In fact, that passage was so bad, that American football might have been the winner. Any more of that and we may have to go back to talking about the Bears and Panthers.

22 mins
Fine determination from Hutchinson - a Canadian, don't you know - finally works the ball to Allback, whose sharp turn and shot had to be saved by Van der Sar.

24 mins
"Well if it's bad puns you want," says Gary. "'Great Danes dog United as Rooney's bark proves worse than his bite' or 'United have Danish for breakfast'." It's more the former than the latter so far, as Norregaard forces another save from Van der Sar. Copenhagen are causing United a few worries.

26 mins
It's all Copenhagen! A canny backheel from Allback gifts Norregaard the space he needed to thread a ball through for Berglund, but Van der Sar anticipated the pass and dashed out to intercept.

27 mins
Rooney responds with a direct run at the heart of the Copenhagen defence. When he is tackled, the ball loops towards Evra on the corner of the box, but his volley is badly mistimed.

29 mins
It's more like a Premiership match than a European one. Both teams are playing at a high tempo, with several physical challenges from all 22 players. Well, 21 - Ronaldo can't do everything, you know.

31 mins
Copenhagen win a corner as Jacobsen's cross rebounds behind off Evra. Jacobsen will swing this one away from Van der Sar with his right boot...

32 mins
Jacobsen drifts it to the far stick, where Gravgaard leaps above Vidic and heads against the post. That's the post that hangs the net behind the goal.

34 mins
Saha goes one-on-one against Christiansen for the second time this evening, and for the second time the keeper foils him. Rooney again was the creator, slipping a perfect ball between the two centre-halves, but when Saha's low shot squeezed between Christiansen and the turf, enough of the pace was taken off it so that Hangeland could recover and clear.

36 mins
"Tommy Smith just mentioned that Michael Carrick was playing. Was news to me, meaning he is at his sublime (best)?" says, er, B Lo. I'd forgotten that too, until he just drilled a stinging shot towards the bottom corner. Christiansen, though, was quick enough to get down and parry the ball, and then jump up and block Scholes's effort from the rebound. He needn't have bothered - the little ginger wizard was offside (Scholes, not Harry Potter's mate Ron Weasley).

GOAL! Man United 1 - 0 FC Copenhagen (Scholes 39)
Carrick's recent strike was good, but Scholes shows his young apprentice how to improve on it. Receiving Saha's lay-off he took one touch to steady himself before swerving the ball from 25 yards outside a defender and into the corner, away from the reach of Christiansen. A fantastic goal.

40 mins
Having shown what he's the best at, Scholes now exhibits what he's worst at - tackling. How he escaped a booking for his late sliding challenge on Linderoth which got nowhere near the ball, I don't know.

42 mins
The Copenhagen boss is bellowing instructions at his team from the touchline. I wouldn't want to be on the end of one of his half-time rants - he looks like Thomas Gravesen's bigger and scarier brother.

44 mins
Ronaldo is the unluckiest man in English football. Whenever he plays for Portugal, everything he hits ends up in the goal - witness his amazing overhead kick last week - but when he plays for Man United both the woodwork and the opposition keepers continuously contrive to keep his shots away from the net. That's a rather rambling way of saying Christiansen saves from Ronaldo.

Half time
That certainly wasn't as easy as many people (er, me included) thought it would be. United have had a couple of minor scares at the back, but, that said, Christiansen has had to save the Danish bacon on many occasions (oh come on, I'm allowed to do it once).

It's been an attacking game with both teams playing a very open 4-4-2 formation, and the space afforded to Copenhagen's midfield by Carrick and Scholes may well justify Fergie's usual reluctance to play this system in Europe (though it doesn't justify spending £18m on the former). Then again, had Saha taken his chances, United would be cruising with a three-goal lead and there would be no quibbles at all.

Half-time food for though (to go with your meat pie)
"Dan Thomassen, famously of the FC Copenhagen bench right now, uses contacts," writes David Tiemroth informatively. "It's not that unheard of, really. They can't all be Edgar Davids, for obvious reasons."

"Another bad pun," begins Russell. Come on then, Russell - they can't be any worse than the ones that have gone before. "Do you think Rooney is intelligent or, as rumour would have it, Odense?" Ok, I was wrong.

"Why are you keeping me on tenterhooks?" asks Bob Marley. No, it can't be. "How did the goal happen - was it so exiciting you accidentally did something crazy to your computer! I am following from work in Toronto and, in addition to not being productive, I am not even getting any information!" Er, press refresh Bob. Although, by the time you've read this, you already will have done I suppose. So not too much point including this email. Oh well, it's there now.

"I'm puzzled," writes Chris in San Diego while simultaneously scratching his head. "How do referees coaches and co communicate given the cosmopolitan nature of the game and its participants today? It seems as if it would be impossible for a French ref to give a meaningful warning to a Russian player for instance."

"Why wasn't Scholes made captain?" asks Gary Naylor, vexing Dennis Patrickson in the process. "He's the senior pro and can surely toss a coin? Does Fergie think Young Wayne's diplomacy with the ref will be more advantageous to the team, or perhaps Wayne speaks Dutch?" Double Dutch usually.

"Carolina?" questions Joe Pearson. "What are you smoking? Have you no love for my home team, the Colts?" The run defense isn't good enough and Manning will bottle it in the post-season as per usual. Now let's get back to a proper game...

The best email I've ever received while doing an MBM
A poem from Darco Ooragnak:"Tonight Utd are playing the Danes from Denmark,Without floodlights it would be very dark.There was loads of fun before the coin was tossed,As Giggs and Ferdinand they were lost.

The battle began with Saha going through,But into the keeper his shot did flew.Hans Christen in goals is having a fine fine game,Only to be spoilt my Scholes oh what a shame.

A duck has spoilt the first half for me,Its stuck outside up a big tree.Rescue or eat it i don`t know what to do,Perhaps i`ll sell it to a an eskimo ( they live in an igloo )

The second half will be on again soon,Will it be joyous or one of doomWho will get injured at the half time break,Hopefully Mr.Carrick for the insurance sake. "

Thank you Darco, that was superb.

46 mins
11 seconds in ... Carrick plays a ball over the top for Rooney ... Rooney flicks it over the keeper ... Rooney runs onto his own flick ... this is surely his goal ... but no, Hangeland beats him to it and nods behind for a corner.

GOAL! Man United 2 - 0 Copenhagen (O'Shea 46)
After some brilliant attacks, United score a truly laughable goal that only O'Shea could manage. A couple of Danish defenders missed Ronaldo's corner, allowing O'Shea to swing his left leg at the ball. He missed it, of course, but the ball then bounced off his standing right leg and past Christiansen into the goal.

48 mins
"As an FC Copenhagen fan, I'd just like to say: ****," says David, summing up the thoughts of most Copenhagen fans after that goal.

50 mins
Evra is booked for kicking the ball away after Carrick had given Norregaard a good shove.

52 mins
Hangeland slides in to deny Rooney a goalscoring chance from Ronaldo's low cross, and then Gravgaard sprints round to sweep the ball away from Fletcher. He needn't have worried - Fletcher would've missed anyway.

54 mins
The cameras pan to Fergie, whose making Giggs crack up by saying something along the lines of: "Here, Ryan, do you know what Anton Ferdinand's middle name is?" "Er, no boss?" "It's Dec!" Or else, maybe he said: "Yeah, I had the chance to buy Hargreaves before the World Cup for £6m, but I though £18m for Carrick would be a much better deal."

56 mins
In the other game in this group, Celtic have just taken the lead through a Kenny Miller goal. The two British sides will be in a great position tonight if these results stay the same.

58 mins
A cleverly disguised pass by Carrick slips in Scholes, who is brought crashing to the ground by the Danish keeper. But inexplicably the ref waves away United protests for a penalty. That was a truly dreadful decision!

60 mins
Double substitution for United: Carrick and Saha, who will not look back on this evening with pleasure, off, Smith and Solskjaer on. I imagine Smith will join Rooney up front, Solskjaer will head to his now favoured position on the right flank, and Fletcher will wander inside to help/hinder Scholes.

62 mins
"The Copenhagen manager who you quite accurate described as Thomas Gravesens bigger and scarier brother, is actually the Norwegian Staale Solbakken, who had a short spell at The Old Wimbledon while they were still quite good," writes Arild Andersen informatitvely. "He never got along with Vinnie Jones, which is probably a good sign, and went on to be extremely popular in Danish football, which is quite an achievement as the Danes likes to describe Norwegian players as 'Mountain Monkeys'." Better than being described as an Arctic Monkey I suppose.

63 mins
The first shot for a while comes from a player in blue, Linderoth slicing across the ball after Hutchinson's considered lay-off. Hopefully the recent substitutions will inject some fresh life into this dormant game, but I fear the next half an hour could drift by with nary any action to report.

64 mins
A superb move from Copenhagen - Wendt, Hutchinson and Allback played five or six one-touch passes before Hutchinson took it upon himself to curl a shot towards Van der Sar's far post. The big Dutchman was up to the task of pushing it away though.

66 mins
Not to be outdone by the half-time poem, here's Gary Naylor again: "There was a young man named Paul ScholesCan't tackle, but boy he scores goalsPale of the skinWith the occasional sinAs versatile as South London's Poles!"As versatile as South London's Poles??? Kenny Miller has scored again to put Celtic two up against Benfica.

67 mins
"I know you thought you were joking with the table-tennis reference, but I actually played against him just after World Cup elimination and let me tell you, Pimpong aint easy," says Brian Sunter.

68 mins
A stern-looking Dutch linesman lifts his flag as Ronaldo and Rooney run through. There's not much happening, which could explain why United fans break into one of their many Eric Cantona songs.

70 mins
"Mike Pleaaaase Man!! Be serious!! John totally meant to score that way. I mean, if it would have been Ronaldinho people would have been saying what a play!! Come on, it was Brilliant by John Oshea. That man got SKILLZZZZ." Can I have some of what you've been drinking please, Chris Oquendo?

71 mins
"Good to see Celtic winning against Benfica - it means another British team in the Big Cup," says Nick Dunkeyson, looking at a chip placed inappropriately on his shoulder. "As opposed to if they were losing, in which case they'd be a Scottish team."

72 mins
Still nothing to report, so more of your poems. "To improve on Naylor's ineptitude," writes Tom King."There was a young man called Paul ScholesWhose tackling would petrify soulsHis skin was as sallowAs uncooked marshmallowBut he was tailor-made for driving in goals from the edge of the area."

73 mins
United win a free-kick on the edge of the box as the ref elects to ignore the handful of blue shirt Smith was clutching, and notice instead the trip Gravgaard inflicted on him. Rooney will take it...

74 mins
But his shot hits the top of Hutchinson's head, leaving the bright hope of English football looking a tad bemused. United are so desperate for him to score tonight that Ronaldo even passed up the opportunity to blast a set-piece into the crowd.

76 mins
A fabulous cross from one player who's made a remarkable comeback from injury couldn't be converted by another. Solskjaer put it on a plate for Smith, but he somehow failed to make enough contact to divert it on target.

77 mins
"Mountain monkeys," begins Michael Macher, "also better than being described as 'Island Monkeys', which is a popular nickname for English players and the English in general in Germany."

78 mins
Fergie has had enough of watching Scholes run the show in midfield, so brings him off and sends Kieron Richardson on to squander possession a few times.

80 mins
Final sub for Copenhagen: Silberbauer off, Bergvold on. Which may be of interest to Morten Ebbe Juul Nielsen, who has this to say: "Did you know that the market value of Giggs exceeds the entire Copenhagen squad? Gets things in perspective." It certainly does given that Giggs can't be worth more than a couple of million quid now.

GOAL! Man United 3 - 0 Copehagen (Richardson 83)
Christiansen spoils an evening of several notable saves by making a real howler - with little movement in front of him, Richardson decided to knock the ball out of his feet and swing his left foot through it. The shot went straight at Christiansen but sadly he didn't get his body behind it properly and it squirmed beyond him and across the goalline. It wasn't of Paul Robinson proportions, but, unlike Robinson, Christiansen was certainly to blame.

86 mins
"Good luck trying not to look like you're eating your words onRichardson now. Does squandering possession include putting the ball between the uprights? If so, Tabloid Wayne must be a master on the ball," says Brent Braga. Actually Brent, had you seen the goal, you would know that his shot was more like a pass straight to the keeper. So in other words, yes - he was squandering possession. It's not my fault the keeper's not good enough to control the ball.

88 mins
United break quickly, as they did so often in the first half, but Solsjkaer's control of Rooney's pass is poor. Moments later though, captain marvel (Rooney) repeats the trick, Solskjaer takes the ball in his stride, but has to watch his shot be saved by Christiansen's legs.

Full time
In the end, a very matter-of-fact victory for United. They never had to get out of third gear against a team who were game, but limited. Should United take three more points in Copenhagen in their next match, they'll be in the last 16 with two games to spare and could then concentrate on the league until February. Thanks for your emails, Mike.